On Sunday, November 13, 2011 at the SWU Music and Arts Festival in Paulínia, Brazil, Peter Gabriel brought up Didi Wagner and The Voice Project to record a message with 50,000 voices in attendance at the festival held outside of São Paulo, Brazil. The message is directed to the child soldiers of the LRA and is being sent to Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic and South Sudan to be broadcast out to the abductees, combatants and affected communities on the radio. Many thanks to Peter, Didi, Dave T, Eduardo Fischer, Theo van der Loo, Joana Stefanutto, Matthew Brubacher, Kenny Laubbacher, Julia Carvalho, everyone at SWU and Mulitshow, Bridgeway Foundation, and our partners at the UN, Invisible Children and Resolve. Chris Holmes, Jason Young, Ryan Gall, Brian Pappalardo, Michelle Meyers, Danielle Porras, Sadie Stafford, Missy Berkowitz, Vaughn Massey, Ariana Delawari, Nada Alic, Bob Ferguson, Claire Lewis, Adam Fink, James de le Vingne, Lisa Dougan, Micheal Poffenberger, Paul Ronan, Kari Keohane, James Heaney, CC Lagator, Kristen Daly, Kelleigh Faldi, Mayega Godwin, Andy Walter, Tom, Betty and Hadas, you were there with us.
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Peter: This is song about hope, about not giving up. I’d like to ask for some help from Didi.
Didi: Hello, hello, hello. Hi, Peter. Hello, everyone!
Well, it’s an honor for me to be on this stage, looking at all of you. I’m here because Peter Gabriel asked me to share with you all a message in Portuguese about an organization that is very important to him, that he supports, and that we’re all going to try to help tonight. Here’s the deal, in the long conflict in some countries of Africa, mainly Uganda and Congo, there is an army called the LRA, the Lord’s Resistance Army, that recruits children, and forces these children to fight and commit atrocities. And even when those children manage to escape, they are afraid to come home, mainly for fear of retaliation.
But there is an organization, called The Voice Project, created by Anna Gabriel, Peter’s daughter, and by Hunter Heaney, that uses the radio to send messages to these children, that they are loved, that they are expected back home. The Voice Project is getting results, many children are returning home, but we want more and more children to find their way back.
So Peter Gabriel, is going to teach us tonight how to say “come home” in the local language. We’re going to record this, we’re going to send it to the radio stations in Congo to broadcast this message, so that the children there will know that the whole world is watching, that these children are loved, and that they are still wanted by their families back home.
Peter Gabriel, I would like to thank you for the honor of being part of this moment, in Multishow’s name, together will all of you. Thank you so much.
They start speaking English.
Peter: Please say with me: Dwog Paco [pronounced Doog Patcho]. One, two, three..
Didi & Crowd: Dwog Paco!
Peter: Ok. Once more. One, two, three…
Dwog Paco!
Thank you very much.